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It would require doing things slightly differently, such as hardware vendors having to buy the rights to redistribute firmware blobs / source code... just becau

by pinusc 3y ago

It would require doing things slightly differently, such as hardware vendors having to buy the rights to redistribute firmware blobs / source code... just because it's hard it doesn't matter it can't happen. After all, if physical components can be brought together to make a product, why can't software licenses move with them? One could also imagine radically different IP laws concerning firmware or even software.

robertlagrant 3y ago
Software is replicable. It might open up companies' IP to worldwide competition. That's the difference from hardware.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  We're talking about firmware which is device-specific, which is why it has to be released separately for each device. Moreover, there exist devices with fully open source firmware, so if anybody wanted one to copy, they don't need yours. They only need yours to use it with your hardware.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    But there is still a difference between software and hardware. This is like saying that for every hardware device I should be able to also spin up my own factory to produce it, and have that bundled into the purchase price.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      I feel like you're missing the context. These devices have a chip in them that needs drivers and firmware. That's software. In particular it's the software that interfaces with the operating system. But the software is specific to a given version of the Linux kernel. When a new kernel comes out, you often have to update the software, for which you need the source code. So when the vendor stops doing this without publishing the code, nobody else can cost effectively do it either, and you can no longer use the hardware with recent versions of the kernel. But older kernel versions have known security vulnerabilities in them, so you can't use those either. The ask is not that they provide free factories for everyone to make their own hardware, it's that they release the source code for this software in particular. Anybody could then copy the software, but it's only useful in combination with their hardware. A competitor in China can't use the same drivers with some other chip, that chip would need different drivers. That's what drivers are. So the only people who want this code are the people who paid the hardware vendor for their product and want to continue using it. The hardware vendor, by contrast, doesn't want to give it to them, not because they fear some competitor using it but because then the customer would be able to keep using the hardware they paid for instead of having to buy a new one. Which is unreasonable enough to prohibit.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > Anybody could then copy the software, but it's only useful in combination with their hardware Well, it would also allow compatible hardware to be manufactured. E.g. "IBM compatible".
        AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        "IBM compatible" was a result of reverse engineering, not open source. And it also has no meaning in this context. What is "compatible" with a WiFi chip or a storage controller? They're all already compatible with each other. The driver is the thing that converts from the device-specific operations to the APIs provided by the kernel. The kernel APIs are already public and anyone can implement them for their own hardware.

by pinusc 3y ago

robertlagrant 3y ago

Software is replicable. It might open up companies' IP to worldwide competition. That's the difference from hardware.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
We're talking about firmware which is device-specific, which is why it has to be released separately for each device. Moreover, there exist devices with fully open source firmware, so if anybody wanted one to copy, they don't need yours. They only need yours to use it with your hardware.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  But there is still a difference between software and hardware. This is like saying that for every hardware device I should be able to also spin up my own factory to produce it, and have that bundled into the purchase price.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    I feel like you're missing the context. These devices have a chip in them that needs drivers and firmware. That's software. In particular it's the software that interfaces with the operating system. But the software is specific to a given version of the Linux kernel. When a new kernel comes out, you often have to update the software, for which you need the source code. So when the vendor stops doing this without publishing the code, nobody else can cost effectively do it either, and you can no longer use the hardware with recent versions of the kernel. But older kernel versions have known security vulnerabilities in them, so you can't use those either. The ask is not that they provide free factories for everyone to make their own hardware, it's that they release the source code for this software in particular. Anybody could then copy the software, but it's only useful in combination with their hardware. A competitor in China can't use the same drivers with some other chip, that chip would need different drivers. That's what drivers are. So the only people who want this code are the people who paid the hardware vendor for their product and want to continue using it. The hardware vendor, by contrast, doesn't want to give it to them, not because they fear some competitor using it but because then the customer would be able to keep using the hardware they paid for instead of having to buy a new one. Which is unreasonable enough to prohibit.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > Anybody could then copy the software, but it's only useful in combination with their hardware Well, it would also allow compatible hardware to be manufactured. E.g. "IBM compatible".
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        "IBM compatible" was a result of reverse engineering, not open source. And it also has no meaning in this context. What is "compatible" with a WiFi chip or a storage controller? They're all already compatible with each other. The driver is the thing that converts from the device-specific operations to the APIs provided by the kernel. The kernel APIs are already public and anyone can implement them for their own hardware.